Juno News - When will universities stop caving to the far-left？

00:00:00.000 Yet again, we are encountering a story of a Canadian university punishing an academic with

00:00:11.320 the wrong views using the guise of anonymous complaints by students who feel unsafe. This

00:00:18.700 time, a gender-critical feminist professor has been removed from a service role within the

00:00:24.100 university because her views apparently upset students. Kathleen Lowry is Associate Professor

00:00:30.820 of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, and she also served as the Department of Anthropology's

00:00:37.180 Associate Chair of Undergraduate Programs. So this is an administrative service role. Keep in mind,

00:00:43.020 Lowry is still a professor at the University of Alberta. Presumably, she has tenure because of her

00:00:48.520 title, Associate Professor. So the professorship is not what we're talking about here. We're talking

00:00:53.000 about this additional service role within the university that Kathleen Lowry held and is being

00:00:59.140 asked to step down from. So why was she asked to step down? Well, it's become all too familiar of a

00:01:04.640 story, but apparently there were some anonymous, informal complaints by students who felt unsafe

00:01:10.800 because Lowry is very open about being a gender-critical feminist. And for those who don't

00:01:15.960 know, a gender-critical feminist is typically someone who believes that biological sex is real,

00:01:21.420 and it is the basis for the patriarchal oppression of women. And gender-critical feminists are usually

00:01:27.800 quite critical of trans activism because they push back against this progressive mantra that

00:01:33.820 trans women are women. So they push back against trans ideology. But Lowry refused to resign from her

00:01:40.680 role as chair and said that if the university wishes to dismiss her from that role, they're going to have

00:01:46.240 to send her a letter listing the reasons why. And so she did receive a letter that was that fired her

00:01:52.540 from the position, but she was never offered any concrete reasons why. The letter from the Dean of

00:01:58.320 Arts only said that it is not in the best interests of the students or the university for Lowry to

00:02:04.120 continue as chair. I don't think I even need to go over what is wrong with the situation. It's also clear

00:02:10.400 that everything is being mishandled here. We have a professor who is not allowed to know the content

00:02:16.700 of complaints made against her. We have students who are using claims of feeling unsafe in order to

00:02:23.600 punish a professor with non-mainstream views. This in turn enforces a culture of ideological conformity

00:02:30.380 within the university. And we have a university bureaucracy that is accepting the idea that students

00:02:36.300 are allowed to say they feel unsafe just because they've encountered an opinion that they disagree

00:02:40.380 with. We need the bureaucracy to push back against that kind of thing because if you encounter an

00:02:45.580 opinion or a belief or an idea you don't like, that doesn't mean you're allowed to say that you feel

00:02:50.060 unsafe as a way to shut it down. And who knows if any student actually felt unsafe. Maybe someone just

00:02:56.620 was complaining on behalf of a hypothetical offended person who may or may not exist. When I look at this

00:03:02.380 situation, I think to myself, when will the universities stop caving to perpetually offended,

00:03:09.980 upset students? When can we finally bring back an academic culture that is proud of having heterodoxy

00:03:17.980 in its community and proud of having diverse beliefs and opinions and ideas amongst its faculty and

00:03:24.300 students? Because as I said earlier, this kind of story is becoming all too familiar. And frankly,

00:03:29.980 it is just so frustrating and tiresome. I'm Lindsay Shepard with True North.

00:03:34.860 Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in next week's video.

Juno News - June 08, 2020